2016-17 NBA Team Previews: Minnesota Timberwolves

July 26, 2016 | Team Previews | 35 Comments

As we prepare for the 2016-17 Fantasy Basketball Season, I’ll be taking a look at each NBA team with their major adds and drops to see if we can pan for any surprise rotational gold. This open is especially witty for the Nuggets. We’ll be counting down from worst NBA regular season to the best, mainly because I’m still figuring out how to rank the Warriors…

Minnesota Timberwolves (29-53)

Wolves

Key Acquisitions:

G Kris Dunn (Rookie)

C Cole Aldrich

F/C Jordan Hill

G/F Brandon Rush

COACH TIBBY TIBS!

Key Losses:

G Kevin Martin

G Andre Miller

Mayyyyybe Kevin Garnett, which would dramatically drop their average age…

Wow, this is going to be one of the most similar looking teams from last year to this season, with their only overhaul at the head coaching position. And yet, I think they’re going to be a popular sleeper playoff pick after finishing 5th worst in the NBA last year.

The Wolves will presumably roll out the same starting 5 that ended 15-16, and it’s a mad fun team. Rubio with the passes, LaVine with dunks, KAT with the post game, Wiggins with the isos, Dieng with the D, lions and tigers and bears, OH MY! And they add into the fold another combo guard who easily looks ready for the NBA, not to mention the Summer League MVP. Plus some underrated vet backups to get this young crew through their run at making the playoffs. Here’s how their roster is shaping up:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

The Odds Are Ever NOT In Your Favor

January 14, 2016 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 23 Comments

by: Peter Kap

A record-breaking $1.5 billion jackpot was up for grabs in the latest powerball drawing on Wednesday. While I didn’t buy a ticket, winning that kind of money is very tempting, despite the terrible odds. The odds are so bad that Bartolo Colon is more likely to hit an inside-the-park homerun than you are at winning the big jackpot. (Interesting fact: Colon also shares a nickname with JB: Big Sexy.) Even with the odds, hopefully your number was called!

The odds of Russell Westbrook scoring 0 points is definitely better than winning the jackpot, but it’s still rare. He was ejected after 15 minutes of playing time with nary a point. Fortunately, he still contributed 7 rebounds, 8 assists, and 2 steals before departing.

Another rarity: Mavericks big man Salah Mejri came off the bench to post 17 points, 9 rebounds, and 1 block in 25 minutes. Zaza Pachulia and Dirk Nowitzki were rested, but still. Mejri had played a combined 20 minutes all season coming into the game!

Stephen Curry scored 38 points. Not that surprising. Well, how about the Nuggets beating the Warriors? Now that’s unexpected. The Warriors were playing without Draymond Green (scheduled rest day), but the Nuggets were just 14-24 coming into the game! In addition to his 38 points, Curry also added 9 assists, 5 rebounds, 5 threes, and 3 steals.

Those were some of the stranger games of the night. Here are the rest of Wednesday night’s daily notes:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Brotherly Love

December 17, 2015 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 41 Comments

by: Peter Kap

Early in the day on Wednesday, Major League Baseball announced that All-Star Todd Frazier was traded from the Cincinnati Reds to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a seven-player trade. Wait, I thought this was a basketball blog! Well, one of those guys involved in the trade was Trayce Thompson. Not quite a Splash Brother, but the biological brother of the Golden State Warriors’ Klay Thompson and former NBA player, Mychel Thompson, who now plays in Italy.

As brothers, it’s pretty common to be competitive with each other. We may not be on as big of a stage as the Thompson brothers, but my older brother and I make almost everything a competition between each other, whether it’s games of one-on-one, 10-mile races, or Settlers of Catan.

While Trayce was gaining popularity as a new member of the Dodgers in California, Klay went off for 27 points in the 3^rd on his way to a game high 43 points (15-22 FG, 8-13 3PT). It must be a happy time for the Thompson family!

Coming off their first loss of the season, the Warriors blew out the Suns by 25, leading by 40 after the 3^rd quarter.

With the game in hand, Thompson, Draymond Green, and Stephen Curry weren’t even needed in the 4^th quarter. That was enough minutes for Green to go for a triple double (16/11/10/5) and Curry to drop 25 points and 7 assists. So much for feeling sad about their first loss.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

NBA Basketball > Politics? Debatable

December 16, 2015 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 51 Comments

by: Matty

On an unusually quiet Tuesday night in the NBA that saw only four games, the most remarkable item is just how unremarkable everything was. Truth be told, I watched a lot more of the Republican debate on CNN than I did professional basketball. (I’ll withhold political commentary for the most part as Razzball isn’t the appropriate forum, but holy heck is the RNC ever in a pickle.)

The usual suspects (James Harden, LeBron James, DeMarcus Cousins) were all solid for their owners, but it’s not like somebody dropped a 40-burger. Nobody poured in a ton of 3-pointers or threw a massive block party. There were no catastrophic injuries (thankfully) and no statement performances. Just a whole lot of “meh.” You can actually count on one hand the number of players who even saw 36 minutes.

Each of the two early games were decided by a dozen points and offered little in the way of drama or uncertainty about the outcome. The late games followed suit as the Greg Monroe-less Bucks got creamed by the Los Angeles Kobes, while Sacramento took care of Houston by 10 in a matchup of what might be the two most unhappy rosters in the league. Only four of the eight teams even managed to hit the century mark.

I guess what I’m ultimately trying to say is that nobody on Tuesday jumped up and said, “Hey Matty! I want the lead. I deserve the lead!” So take notice, NBA – the lead is not simply given, it must be earned. Be better than Donald Trump, basketball.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Matt Barnes Finishes Too Early

December 10, 2015 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 34 Comments

by: Peter Kap

Matt Barnes capped off the Memphis Grizzlies comeback victory over the Pistons, by drilling a half court shot with 1.1 seconds left in the game. It’s probably the best mood that Barnes has been in all season. I don’t think Derek Fisher will have to worry about getting punched this week..

I was a bit surprised that Barnes took the shot considering there were still a few ticks on the clock when he chucked it up. Either way, it was a nice finish to a nice game from Barnes (8 points, 11 rebounds, and 3 assists in 30 minutes). The journeyman forward has always been a borderline fantasy player for his ability to do a little bit of everything.

Barnes had a nice string of games at the end of November, but now that Zach Randolph is back (21 points and 16 rebounds), Barnes has seen his minutes decrease. He should probably be dropped in 10 and 12 team leagues, but should continue to be monitored, should he see around 30 minutes a night.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Elite Assist Sources Give You A Thursday Kick To The Groin

November 13, 2015 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 154 Comments

by: JB Gilpin

After a pretty quiet first week, we’re all the sudden getting ravaged by injuries and late DNP scratches. LET STEROIDS BE ALLOWED AGAIN DAMMIT! No one wants to see Austin Rivers start an NBA game… And then to top it off, the Clippers started a backcourt with daddy’s boy Austin alongside Pablo Prigioni… Who is certainly old enough to be Rivers’ daddy too…

But before that travesty in Phoenix, the Wolves decided to scratch Ricky Rubio after calling him probable. To be fair, it was probable they were going to get bludgeoned by the Warriors, then again they played Golden State pretty close… Mitchell probably thought this was a loss anyway, but who knows if Rubio would’ve made a difference over the Zach LaVine start and the out-of-nowhere minutes for Andre Miller. Then to just make assists even more a lost cause for fantasy owners, Chris Paul was suddenly questionable then ruled out with his groin strain. Maybe his groin injury is some sort of cosmic karma for punching Julius Hodge in the nuts when at Wake Forest… Isn’t cosmic karma an ice cream flavor…? Whatever, anything to keep me from saying groin again! There isn’t much of a fantasy spin on these frustrating-as-hell DNPs, other than Rubio indeed looked like a massive sell-high after that opener and CP-3 needs to re-nicknamed CP-DNP. Both will be managed and it will hurt their overall value, so if you can sell for per-start stats, I would. And just like the trend we’re seeing in all the other major sports, players will be managed through minor bumps and bruises, especially injury-prone and older players. LET STEROIDS BE ALLOWED AGAIN DAMMIT! Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Mo Williams, Less Problems

November 11, 2015 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 80 Comments

by: Matty

Well, that was a bit of a bloodbath.

On what should have been a relatively quiet evening in the NBA, there sure wound up being a lot of noise. And not a lot of it was good noise. For a lot of fantasy owners, Tuesday probably sounded a bit like this.

Mid-game injuries, late-breaking inactives, and low minutes due to a few blowouts seemed to be the consistent narrative of the night.

We’ll get to all that depressing stuff, but let’s start out on a high note – Mo Williams had himself a game. On nearly perfect shooting (8-9 FGs, 9-10 FTs, 4-4 from 3-point range), Mo helped the Cavaliers slip past the Utah Jazz 118-114 in the best game of the night. In addition to the stellar percentages, Williams chipped in six boards, six dimes, and stole the ball twice just for funzies. Five turnovers took a bit of shine off an otherwise brilliant outing, but this still goes down as one of the top fantasy lines of the evening. Mo Williams will continue to be a must-start player until Kyrie Irving comes back, and common sense would suggest that if Mo keeps balling at a high level and the Cavs keep winning, there’s no reason to rush Kyrie back anytime soon. So it’s a bit of a snowball effect in that the immediate returns are great, but they’re also likely to help extend Mo’s opportunity for a 30+ MPG role on a title contending team. People waiting on Irving to return won’t enjoy hearing that, but it’s championship-or-bust in Cleveland, so Kyrie isn’t coming back with health a single percentage point below 100.

Not to be outdone, LeBron James had himself a phenomenal fourth quarter, scoring 17 points (6-8 FGs), 4 rebounds, 3 assists and a steal as the Cavs scored 38 points in the final frame against one heck of a good defensive team. LBJ finished the game with 31/7/8/2/0 and dropped in a three pointer. He matched Mo Will’s five giveaways and missed four of his 12 freebies, but for all intents and purposes this was a win for LeBron owners as he made it out of the game healthy after soldiering through an owwy on his thigh.

Let’s get on to the rest of the notables…

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Patience Is An Andrew …and the 7 Ahead

November 9, 2015 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 190 Comments

by: JB Gilpin

When you go out on a limb on a guy and it starts slow, at least I can pull the “it’s a long season” card. Or the “his back has been a little spasmy” card. Hah, little Pod joke there…

I gotta say, I love you commenters here on Razzball. A lot of Andrew Wiggins frustration has been thrown around, like “he single-handedly killed my FG%”, and “he’s why I started 1-8”, and “Wiggins must be dating yet another one of those Kardashians”. But I was really honored to say almost all of the vitriol wasn’t at me. Hell, I was expecting to be served on the coals for that one! Or some sort of cliche that works… Maybe it was out of the decency of your hearts since I obviously own him on several teams with this rank. I got way more hate for saying Nate Robinson was a good opening night streamer/last draft pick in 12ers! But like the worst drunken one night stand in history, I got rid of Nate about 4 or 5 minutes in. While with Wiggins, I’m entrenched in a life-long relationship. Hope my wife isn’t reading this! After a really rocky start, Wiggins finally looked like the breakout talent I was hoping for on Saturday night against the Bulls, going 31/3/2/0/1 with only 1 TO and hit 4 treys. Of course it wouldn’t be a pristine line, but then again what relationship is suddenly perfect?! Except my marriage of course! Wiggy still shot like poo (11-27) and had an odd 5-10 FT game. He’s usually gonna be a high-volume 80% guy from the stripe, plus he hit 4-5 from deep, so there’s still hope the FG% climbs as his bum back gets healthier and he shoots his way out of it. Of course you can point to Kevin Martin not playing (personal) for the burst in treys, but big picture we still think K-Mart gets moved. Even with K-Mart, they’re using him as a 6th man and Wiggy is the only real perimeter option in the starting 5 anyway. I also think with a little more health, he’ll play more aggressive on D. The one swat he had was a legit one, not a lazy strip that’s scored a block, WHICH STILL FRUSTRATES ME! The buy low window is closing rapidly, so if you’re still hoping to buy in on Wiggy, I’d wait until tonight and see if he has another rough shooting game before opening the floodgates. If you own Wiggy, definitely hold, particularly with the Wolves playing 5 games this week. Here’s what else went down over the weekend in NBA action, plus The 7 Ahead for week 3:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

C.J. Stands For “Calm The Juck Down!”

October 29, 2015 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 129 Comments

by: JB Gilpin

Flashy player. Ridiculous opportunity. Buzzy preseason. A lot of times it ends up fizzling out, sometimes it works out OK, and one time it’s C.J. McCollum.

C.J. went absolutely bonkers in his 15-16 debut, hitting 14-22 from the field including 6-9 3PTM for 37/6/1/1/0 and no TO. Video game numbers! So he’s a shooter, and he does what NBA shooters do – keeps draining em when they hot! But I think we need to take a step back and consider a few things: Other than massive Pts and treys it was fairly empty. This was against the Pelicans, who without Brow, might look worse than the Sixers; they look horrific. And the third thing that no one seemed to mention while anointing McCollum the next big thing in combo guards this preseason – he’s got a pretty extensive injury history. He’s at the pinnacle of a sell high for me. Do I think he’ll be hot garbage all the sudden? Of course not. But do I think he scores 37 again this year? I don’t. Well, unless they faced the Pelicans every night… I’d shop around in the 40-50 range of ADP and see if you can get lucky. As with all fantasy takeaways off one game, it’s always good to keep from overreacting. Compared to fantasy football, we’re at the same point as about 9 minutes into the first quarter of week 1. Still a long way to go. Here’s what else went down during the first full slate of fantasy basketball action:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Drew’s Premier RCL League Recap! (Early Draft)

October 14, 2015 | Razzball Commenter Leagues | 24 Comments

by: Drew

The regular season approaches — fewer than three weeks before our lives finally have meaning again! My RCL had a draft last weekend, and I wanted to share the results with all of you wonderful readers as a fascinating case study and (perhaps) cautionary tale! This was an excellent draft– I think all managers were drafting live, making some ballsy and brilliant picks. I’ve included a grade and a few words on each of their teams after my pick-by-pick blow-by-blow. Off we go!

[editor’s note – we still have leagues open to join the RCL fun, plus we need more leagues! Hop over to the RCL sign-ups and start a league today!]

Please, blog, may I have some more?

It’s. The. Return.

September 22, 2015 | H2H Playoff Schedule | 72 Comments

by: Slim

Yeah. It goes like this right here. It’s the return of the writings of Slim! That reminds of an Outkast song, and that song reminds me of 1998. If you don’t remember it was the year we learned there was yet another way to be disgusted by a cigar. That near, far, wherever you are you probably found yourself at some point rooting for the most unlikeliest of protagonists, Billy Zane. And of course it was the year the ‘Blue Screen of Death‘ truly became a meme, long before anyone knew what a meme was.

Gangstaaaaa… It’s the return… turn…

In the NBA draft that year there were 3 guys drafted that are still playing and should one day be in the Hall of Fame. I’ll give you a hint, the top 3 draft picks were Michael Olowokandi, Mike Bibby, and Raef LaFrentz, and if you were playing fantasy basketball back then you might have gone all-in on one of them. Give up? They are Vince Carter, Dirk Nowitzki, and Paul Pierce. Pick number 5, 9, and 10 respectively. That’s not to say great players aren’t drafted 1st, but the only thing guaranteed when you are first overall is a whole boat load of money. Something about the use of the word ‘only’ there doesn’t quite feel right.

Return… Ganstuhuhuh… It’s the re…

It seems so easy to see when you’re talking time traveling, something mind unraveling. Get Down. It’s a whole lot harder to do here and now using some funky combination of math, logic, illogical fandom, a random number generator, and of course the occasional dart throw. For some reason though, after about an hour on 350 (or about 176c) it develops a creamy caramel colored crust. Once it cools, just cut it up and consume. So here’s you’re 1st taste. Slim’s, I can’t believe I’m writing this in 3rd person, RCL playoff schedule post.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Top 150 For 2015-16 Fantasy Basketball

August 27, 2015 | Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes | 79 Comments

by: JB Gilpin

Ah, the late-round fliers! Which I think is “fliers”. A lot of the time, I almost write it “flyers”. Zach LaVine is a late round flyer! Eesh, being a married man makes you start getting reallllll corny with the jokes.

So as I’ve mentioned a few times getting through the top 100 (Rank 1-10 | Rank 11-20 | Rank 21-50 | Rank 51-75 | Rank 76-100), there just isn’t many warm bodies out there to call “JB’s late sleepers”. And, well, a lot of that is because I have guys that are ranked in the 100s on Yahoo and ESPN in my mid-rounds (cough, Jordan Clarkson – ESPN 99 Yahoo 144, what the hey?! aherm, cough cough – I’ve caught the plague!), while just as much is the lack of sexy rookies in good situations. Jahlil Okafor is awful for fantasy. D’Angelo Russell loves talking 401ks with Josh Smith by the turnovers at the breakfast buffet. Stanley Johnson looks awesome, but Detroit has a bigger wing mix than Bdubs. Asian zing – that one my jam!

With these final rounds of players, it’s also important to factor in league size. These ranks are [hoping to tailor] for a 12-team league, so I’ll reach for a tad more upside the later we go than go for stability. Tristan Thompson is going to be mad consistent for some points and boards for the very deep leagues, but lordy he’ll be unownable in a 12er. You’re fired! Can’t believe this Trump stuff is still going on… Anyway, here’s the Top 150 for the 2015-16 Fantasy Basketball Season:

Please, blog, may I have some more?